


Three for Four

by tweedisgood



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Light BDSM, Multi, Victorian Attitudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 15:38:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1693580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tweedisgood/pseuds/tweedisgood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>221bs for three of the ACD_holmesfest Four-times participants</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three for Four

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mistyzeo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistyzeo/gifts), [capt_facepalm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/capt_facepalm/gifts), [fabelschwester](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=fabelschwester).



_For capt_facepalm:_

Violet Hunter sought my friend’s aid four times in all. I have written only of the first and there is no record in England of the last. A man who spends his life following the tracks of others had better take good care to cover his own.

The Copper Beeches lay felled like her hair; the mystery revealed; the lovers reunited. Miss Hunter was on the market again – as a teacher, that is.

She wrote to him from the school at Walsall, the year after. He cleared up the matter of the twin daughters of Lord Aumerle and the fraudulent cheque without so much as looking up the journey north in a Bradshaw’s.

A telegram from an exclusive academy for young ladies in Lucerne in late April of 1891 went unanswered. Had she but known it, he was closer to her when she sent it than at any time since she was last in our Baker Street sitting room.

Three years later, somehow, she found him. Lest she become prey for the fourth time, he gave her - and her child, conceived on a broken promise - a dead man’s name for reputation, in a chapel at Montpelier.

To the world, he yet remains one of the most famous (though, given his published habits, perhaps not the most eligible) of bachelors.

_For mistyzeo:_

“Mr Holmes, how many times have you kissed a woman?”

“As you have doubtless deduced from my clumsiness - but evidently forgiven it - this is the first, Mrs Watson.”

***************************************************

“And a man, Holmes?”

“Ah, Watson, there I must confess second time’s the charm. Victor, you know, could be very persuasive, and at more than getting me to spend the summer holidays with him.”

*******************************************************

“Mary, fetch me my Index, if you will. I believe this is the third occasion we have come across the Farandola gang this year. We must memorise their faces until we can penetrate the heaviest disguise their leaders can muster.”

“Holmes, are you capable of saying the word ‘penetrate’ _without_ giving it a lascivious undertone?”

“Capable? Indeed. However, double meanings, like double pleasures, are so much more delicious, don’t you agree?”

“All the more when tripled, Sherlock.”

“Straight to the point as ever, dear girl. Come here. Our husband needs a lesson in inference.”

********************************************************************

“What do you think, my dear? Riding crop or birch? He is tiresomely right for the fourth time in as many days. Positively insufferably correct, and premature into the bargain: caught the villains whilst we were still sleeping.”

“Dear John, so true. Perhaps both in turn. Sherlock?”

“Please. If I get to choose who goes first.”

“Certainly not. Assume the position, boy.”

 

_For fabelschwester:_

“My father thought the study of the Classics the only fit occupation for a gentleman, Victor. Science? Science smacked too much of the mechanic. He sent me up to Cambridge without the least idea what was really in my head.”

“No-one has the least idea what is in your head, dear one. Not even you, sometimes. My father knew mine. He feared it, but he knew, or suspected. It was exactly the Classics that worried him – a straightforward man, without learning himself. All that talk of perfect forms, of noble love, of warrior and comrades. All those foreigners with their language like a secret code. ‘I’ve been to sea, lad’, he’d say. ‘A lot of unnatural goings-on under the cloak of _shipmates true_ and _bad luck to have a woman on board_. Never trust someone who doesn’t speak to you straight in plain English.’

“You mustn’t trust me, then, not with your life _nor_ your virtue. I make it a point of honour to speak in riddles and have queer ideas, you know.”

“Drat, too late to save my virtue. Budge over, Holmes. This bed is damned narrow and I’ve an interesting novelty in mind tonight. I found this gem in London at the weekend. Look at the fourth illustration.”

“I say. Now there’s a plain English word for you: buggery.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for fabelschwester, mistyzeo and capt_facepalm, three of the seven participants (excluding the mods) who had participated in every round of the acd_holmesfest gift exchange so far.


End file.
